1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus, a printing material cartridge used in the printing apparatus, and an adapter for a cartridge.
2. Related Art
Recently, as a printing material cartridge, a cartridge in which a storage device that stores information regarding a printing material (for example, a remaining ink amount) is mounted has been used. In addition, a technique for performing mounting detection on a printing material cartridge has been used. For example, in JP-A-2005-119228, a CPU of a printing apparatus detects whether or not an ink cartridge is mounted by communicating with a storage device of the ink cartridge.
However, in the technique of JP-A-2005-119228, when a user is to perform mounting detection while performing an operation of replacing the ink cartridge, there is a need of detaching the ink cartridge while the ink cartridge is electrically connected to the storage device of the cartridge. In this case, since hot swapping of the storage device is performed, a semiconductor element in the storage device is stressed by the hot swapping, and thus there is a possibility of a bit error occurring. On the other hand, when the CPU is caused not to access the storage device of the cartridge during the operation of replacing the ink cartridge in order to prevent such a bit error, there are problems in that which cartridge is not mounted cannot be displayed on a display panel or the like of the printing apparatus to notify a user during the replacing operation and thus a convenience of the user is significantly degraded.
In addition, as a technique of mounting detection of an ink cartridge, a technique described in JP-A-3-284953 is also known. In the technique of JP-A-3-284953, a mounting detection circuit of a printing apparatus determines whether or not an ink cartridge is mounted by detecting a voltage which is changed according to an ink resistance value in the ink cartridge. However, in this technique, there is a problem in that in order to detect whether or not individual cartridges from among a plurality of ink cartridges are mounted, wiring lines for the mounting detection have to be individually installed between the respective cartridges and mounting detection circuits of the printing apparatus.
In addition, the above-described problem is not limited to ink cartridges and the same problem occurs in a printing material cartridge in which a different kind of printing material (for example, toner) is accommodated.